What Does The Mamdani Era Mean for U.S. Muslims And Jews?
(ANALYSIS) In his out-of-nowhere ascent to become New York City’s next mayor, Zohran Mamdani won by 50.4% in a three-man race with the heaviest voter turnout since 1969, a remarkable achievement for a 34-year-old, inexperienced immigrant. Now there’s widespread discussion of whether his socialist programs can work, and how he might affect the Democratic Party nationally.
Perhaps even more important will be his performance as America’s first high-profile Muslim office-holder. The campaign’s competing accusations of “antisemitism” versus “Islamophobia” raise obvious concerns for Muslims, and for Jews, for whom New York has long been the most important town west of Tel Aviv. Signals are mixed on whether the Mamdani era will improve or worsen relations between these religious communities.
Like earlier Catholics and Jews, U.S. Muslims are beginning to achieve political success in the 21st Century. The 32 Jews in Congress compare with four Muslims, all in the House: André Carson of Indiana (first elected 2008), Ilhan Omar of Minnesota (2018), Rashida Tlaib of Michigan (2022) and Lateefah Simon of California (2024). In 2018, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison was the first Muslim to win a statewide office. On November 4, Virginia’s Lieutenant Governor-elect Ghazala Hashmi, Ph.D., became the first Muslim woman to do so, and by a comfortable 11% margin. All these politicians are Democrats.
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In exit polling, the city’s Jews, who usually boost Democratic nominees, gave Mamdani only 33% with 63% for ex-Governor Andrew Cuomo, a problematic Independent. The Religion Census counts 527,177 Muslim adherents in the city, including children, as of 2020, well outnumbering cumulative Jewish membership. Mamdani claims there are “more than one million Muslims.” The nationwide Census count is 4,455,908 Muslims, again exceeding synagogue affiliations.
Political scientist Ryan Burge posted an astute overview in the 2023 column “The Politics of Muslims in the 21st Century.” Like Jews overall, and Catholics until this generation, Muslims vote Democratic, and at even higher rates than atheists and Black Protestants. They are notably more conservative than other Democrats on such matters as abortion, private school vouchers, marijuana limits, transgenderism, and (more surprisingly) immigration.
However, a Muslim research institute’s poll found only 50% of Muslims in 2024 voted for Democrat Kamala Harris, 31% for Republican Donald Trump, and the rest going third party. In the same poll, 63% said they have experienced anti-Muslim discrimination.
Muslims’ political leverage beyond New York City is limited. They exceed 3% of the population only in Illinois, New York State, New Jersey, and Maryland, thus adding votes where Democrats usually win anyway. They do, however, make up 2.4% in battleground Michigan.
For Jews, Mamdani’s victory signals declining political clout. Not long ago, it would have been inconceivable to elect even a Muslim mayor who was warmly appreciative toward Israel, which does not describe Mamdani. Jewish numbers and institutions are in decline. The campaign underscored that Israel’s military response to the Oct. 7 Hamas atrocities has shattered community solidarity, particularly among younger Jews.
Around 1950, Jews reached a high of around 2 million in New York City, a quarter of the population. The era’s Jewish political power in the city and country was personified by Democrat Emanuel Celler, who entered the U.S. House in 1923 and served just shy of 50 years. Muslims can appreciate how he made today’s sizable population possible as a primary promoter of the 1965 liberalization of immigration law.
New York City Democrat Chuck Schumer is the highest-ranking elected Jewish official in U.S. history as the majority or minority leader of the Senate. In March, he published the book “Antisemitism in America: A Warning.” In an extraordinary decision, he did not endorse Mamdani after he won the Democratic nomination (nor did other important non-Jewish Democrats).
On Oct. 22, more than 1,000 U.S. rabbis issued a letter contending that when figures like Mamdani “refuse to condemn violent slogans, deny Israel’s legitimacy, and accuse the Jewish state of genocide,” they foster hostility toward Jews and Judaism. That is, Mamdani rejects Israel’s existence as a Jewish state (alongside 57 officially Islamic countries), endorses economic and cultural boycotts against Israel, vows to arrest Israel’s Prime Minister if he visits the city, and reluctantly downplayed but did not denounce Palestinians’ “globalize the intifada” cry, which for Jews commands violence.
Looking ahead, Commentary magazine senior editor Seth Mandel worries that Mamdani “flaunted his rageful obsession with Israel and used baldly antisemitic language, and won anyway.” The morning after the election, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) unveiled its “Mamdani Monitor” website and tip line to receive reports of dangers to “community safety.” A post-election statement by the New York Board of Rabbis and regional UJA-Federations said “we cannot ignore that the mayor-elect holds core beliefs fundamentally at odds with our community’s deepest convictions and most cherished values.”
Jews nationwide are understandably edgy when the ADL received reports of 9,354 antisemitic incidents during 2024, the most ever and an 893% increase over a decade. While the Democratic Left turns against Israel, Jews are also alarmed by the right-wing and platforming of antisemites like Daryl Cooper, Nick Fuentes and Candace Owens.
For his part, Mamdani on Oct. 24 delivered a heartfelt talk that took pride in his faith and denounced the anti-Muslim bigotry in his city.
“I will not change who I am, how I eat, for the faith that I’m proud to call my own,” he declared.
Meher Ahmad, a New York Times Opinion editor, considers it a “certainty” that the new mayor will now “contend with even more Islamophobic slurs, on a national scale.”
Mamdani has a major opportunity to set precedents as a pioneer in American Islam. Could he thoughtfully position himself as a prominent friend and defender of Jews within his city’s and nation’s luxuriant multiculturalism, whatever his criticisms of specific Israeli policies? His victory speech made a start, envisioning a mayoralty that “does not waver in the fight against the scourge of antisemitism” as well as “Islamophobia.”
Also, his sudden visibility in world Islam could be used to champion democracy, which he himself now exemplifies, and modern respect for human rights based upon the Quran and the tradition.
Richard N. Ostling was a longtime religion writer with The Associated Press and with Time magazine, where he produced 23 cover stories, as well as a Time senior correspondent providing field reportage for dozens of major articles. He is a recipient of the Religion News Association's Lifetime Achievement Award. He has interviewed such personalities as Billy Graham, the Dalai Lama, Mother Teresa and Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI); ranking rabbis and Muslim leaders; and authorities on other faiths; as well as numerous ordinary believers. He writes a bi-weekly column for Religion Unplugged.